Can someone recommend a good Broadband Speed assessor?

[packman 0]

I've recently switched to ADSL broadband and have been trying to assess my in-practice download speed. I'm supposed to be on an ADSL 2M bits/sec connection but, doing some simple calculations on a couple of sizeable file downloads the other day (Windows updates) indicated that my download speed was nearer 500K bits/sec, about a quarter of what it should be. And no, I'm not stupidly loading the line or anything like that.

 

My router-modem shows the telecomms company's ADSL line speeds as 2M bits/sec and 256K bits/sec for downstream and upstream but I'm fairly sure it got those figures just from the initial synchronisation, not from any longterm download/upload assessment.

 

Now, I'm no network expert but I do know that latency, contention and line quality do lower the effective download and upload speeds, from the theoretical values - but to a QUARTER?! No way, surely?!

 

So, how can I make a convincing measurement of my download speed? Is not what I've done good enough? Can someone suggest a utility that'll do that for me, preferably one that doesn't require Java (as I use Firefox and have got Java disabled)?

 

I'd have thought that the speed indicated in Firefox, when you do a download, was reasonably accurate. Is that not so?

[packman 0]

Actually, that 500K bits/sec figure was as of yesterday, when my ADSL connection first went live. I've now done a dummy download, using Firefox and the average figure it showed on a 4.7MB file (Firefox 1.0.3) was 195kB/sec. I take that to be bytes/sec.

 

Well, 195kB/sec = 1560Kbits/sec = 1.56M bits/sec.

 

That's more like it! Still a bit low, but then I'm about 3 - 5km from my local exchange, so I can't expect miracles.

[theefool 0]

I'm sure there are hundreds of sites to choose from. Here is one:

 

http://www.dslreports.org/tools

 

No one site is better than the rest. It all just comes down to your location. Also, network congestation helps things to (hampers?).

[packman 0]

Thanks, that looks jolly useful.

 

[ScinteX 0]

There's an extension for FireFox that might help (bandwidth tester):

 

https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=178&application=firefox

 

Also lots of other cool little bits and bobs for FireFox in the same place.

 

S

[theefool 0]

I never really liked that extension for Firefox.

[GTwannabe 0]

http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

 

Best site I've tried so far... only one that's been able to reliably show my cable modem's upload/download speeds. My service is 9mbit down/1mbit up, the above link regularly shows 7-8.5mbit down, 1mbit up. Most of the other bandwidth sites can't measure that fast and only show 3.5mbit down, 500k up.

[packman 0]

I tried that Firefox extension but it was useless. The file never seemed to download, even though Firefox showed it happening. The file just disappeared.

 

 

[Sampson 0]

One of the best is http://dfw.speakeasy.net/

[packman 0]

gtwannabe,

 

Yes, that 'bandwidthplace' speedchecker is much more straightforward and does work. However, I'm not so sure that you and I are interpreting the results correctly.

 

I don't profess to be a total expert when it comes to networks and broadband but it seems to me that the speed can change (even more so than with dial-up), according to the conditions on the Internet at the time. In other words, the speed's affected, in particular, by:

 

the physical quality of the line back to the local exchange;

contention on the line (usually 50:1 on non-business accounts);

latency;

no. of hops between servers;

how busy a particular website is;

administrative resrictions on certain websites.

 

Also, some ISPs - and I can only cite what I've observed here in the UK - seem to have free licence with the naming of their various subscriber accounts, starting with a 500Kbit account and going up to, say, a 2Mbit account. In practice it can mean that all those accounts are run the same, but it's just that, if you're nominally on a 2M bit account, the speed can drop to something far below that (sometimes down to dial-up speeds) if contention gets high enough.

 

My personal account is supposed to be a 2M bit one and I thought until today that my ACTUAL download speed was 1.56M bits/sec, but using the 'bandwidthplace' test today, I found it to be only 1.2M bits/sec. Thus, for the reasons I've given, I don't doubt that re-running the test at a different time will render a different figure.

 

[felix 0]

The way I usually do it is to log into your provider FTP server, find a largish file (10-15mb) and crank it that way you're only dealing with the speed back to your provider backbone rather than their connection to the net.

 

I think this gives the best indicator of actual connection speed.

[theefool 0]

Or do a tracert to the server, then ping the first hop, which will give you the time that the packet was sent and received.

 

Hmmm, probably not what you want to do.

[packman 0]

I've been told that you can get a good idea of the line speed and where bottlenecks might be occurring by pinging one or more websites, or using tracert. You can do these via command prompt or, in my case, through a diagnostic in the router-modem. However, pinging doesn't seem to work. I guess most websites block pings.

 

At present, when I use the tester at 'bandwidthplace', I'm getting download figures varying from 900K bits/sec to 1.2M bits/sec; I've tried on different days, at different times. My nominal ADSL speed is supposed to be 2M bits/sec. I'd expect SOME overheads and SOME losses, but THAT HIGH?!!!!! Note that 'bandwidthplace' is free only three times per month.

 

For those who reside in the UK, I'd be interested to see what results they get if the use the speedchecker at www.adslguide.org.uk. A friend of mine, supposedly on a 1M bit line, gets tip-top results on that (reporting 2M bits/sec and virtually zero losses, yet he lives nearby), which frankly I don't believe. When I tried it myself, it also gave tip-top results, which is just nonsense. My connection (and that of my friend) simply can't be that good, because we're between 4 and 6km from the exchange and are on 50:1 contention.

 

So, for any of you UK bods, try that one out. Be careful how you publish the results here, though, as some test results, with these speedcheckers, show your IP address in it.

 

 

[ScinteX 0]

The page cannot be displayed

 

 

I'll try later 4 ya